Photo courtesy of Netflix
Season 3 of 'Fauda' began streaming on Netflix on April 16, 2020.
A hit on Israeli television (and available on Netflix), “Fauda” means “chaos” in Hebrew and Arabic. It’s well named for a story deep into the moral and physical chaos inhabited by both sides in the interminable conflict over Palestine. At bottom, “Fauda” is about who has rights to the sliver of land between the Mediterranean and the desert and what happens to the side that loses. Negotiations seem unlikely.
“Fauda” is also in the lingo of Israeli special operations, roughly meaning: “Fucking hell! Get out of there!” It’s a situation often encountered by the special ops squad at the heart of season one as they pursue a Hamas terrorist too slippery to catch. The show’s protagonist, Doran, was credited with killing the Panther, as the Hamas leader is known, 18 months earlier. Doran retired to raise grapes and tend to his fraying marriage but returns to the service when evidence surfaces that the Panther still lives—and leads.
“Fauda” is as relentless and high-testosterone as a commando raid at dawn. The sole woman among the Israeli special ops plays well in the Delta Force-man’s world. The women on the other side have fewer options. Shirin studied medicine in France and returned home to help support her people. She is emotionally victimized by men whose power rises from their will to violence. She is afraid.
Although inevitably told from an Israeli perspective, “Fauda” refuses to reduce its Palestinian characters to a single dimension. Most of them are angry and desperate for reasons that are understandable given what the series shows of their circumstances. Now in its third season, “Fauda” depicts in the indignity and poverty they endure.
